12.9.04

#3 Part 2

Ok, well I just finished reading Aristotle's Poetics, and quite frankly I am not clear at all on how he corrects Plato's opinion of literature. I mean, what he's really doing here is explaining the essential parts of a good work of literature. Maybe thereby he is showing that literature is not entirely useless, untrue, and bad because there is a kind of science to it, and it does take intellectual work--not just emotional spewing like Plato seemed to think. When it comes down to it, I prefer Plato to Aristotle--he's a lot easier to understand. Maybe his "solution" will become clearer after class; if so, I'll add more then.